


In the Garden

by epkitty



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-28
Updated: 2011-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-16 00:32:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epkitty/pseuds/epkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Growing up is hard to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Garden

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Tarot card 02, The High Priestess. I know the time lines don’t line up in canon. Too bad. This takes place just after the end of WW2. It was originally intended as pre-slash, but it's really more gen.

Lucy thought herself unaccountably lucky to attend a school with its own garden.

It was unfortunate that most of the other students didn't seem to think so. Even Susan seemed to take it for granted that they could walk nearly everyday among the green growing things.

During her free hours, Lucy would creep away, whenever the weather permitted, to set up a lovely little picnic there in the garden. She would pack up her rucksack with as much as it could hold, and take the stone paths that curled through the patches of roses and other fragrant, growing things. She left behind the tidy rows of pinks and violets, the neatly trimmed lawn, and the clean-washed cobbles, to enter into the web of trees that had grown up along the edge where the overgrown bushes were never quite tamed, where the wildflowers had taken root, and where there was never another living soul to bother her.

There, between the yellow cascading forsythia and the shiny-leaved rhododendron, she lay out the blanket pinched from the laundry, and unwrapped the rolls pilfered from the breakfast table. She invariably had a book as companion, seeing as she'd never yet managed to coax another girl from the school to come with her. She didn't mind being alone, and had taken to it - out of necessity - rather wonderfully. Just the same, it would have been nice to sit with someone else, and to talk about something other than boys or schoolwork.

She suspected some of the instructors thought her rather daft when she professed particular notions about kings and queens. Or lions.

And she was angry, too. Angry that Susan would not listen to her. Angry that Susan would not talk about Narnia. Angry that Susan seemed to think the two worlds so very different, that one could not influence the other.

One of Lucy's true respites were the letters she exchanged with Edmund once or twice a month.

She drew his most recent response from between the leaves of the storybook she'd smuggled out of the library to reread it.

Edmund had changed more than any of them, and his words were always encouraging, always firm, always loving. She didn't know how she would have made it through her days without crying, if it weren't for Edmund's letters.

Lucy was just biting into her breakfast roll when she heard a soft, "Oh," from behind her.

She sat up straight and turned to look at the girl, little older than herself, who stood in her school uniform with hands clenched tight and tears drying on her cheeks.

Lucy put down the roll and the letter. "It's all right," she said softly. "No one ever looks here. Come sit with me for a while."

The girl bit her lip, debating, then heard laughter approaching from the garden. She walked over to seat herself on the blanket, looking half at Lucy and half over her shoulder out of fear.

Lucy offered her a handkerchief.

"Oh, thank you."

"You're welcome. I'm Lucy. Lucy Pevensie."

The girl looked shocked. "I… I should go…"

"Don't _tell_ me my sister's been at you? Susan should know better."

"She's in my year," the girl said.

"What's your name?"

"Wendy Darling."

"Don't fret, Wendy. Are you new? I've not seen you before."

"It's my first day."

Lucy smiled and Wendy could not help but smile, too.

"I suppose," Wendy went on to say, "things can't get much worse. I've already made a fool of myself three times over, and I'm sure none of the girls shall be my friend now."

"Well, if you don't mind younger friends, I'll be yours," Lucy said. "One can't have too many, and I've few enough as it is. You're safe here, anyway," she said. "Sit with me in the sun for a while, just to relax."

"Relax," Wendy said, huffing a small breath of laughter. "Oh, you've a book. What is it?"

"Fairytales," Lucy said, pulling it onto her lap. "Do you like stories?"

Wendy examined the illustrated cover, long-faded. "Sometimes," she admitted.

"I could read you a story."

"Yes, all right. But…"

"Yes?"

"Can you read one without fairies in it?" Wendy asked.

"Of course," Lucy said, opening the book to search for something appropriate. She chose Beauty and the Beast, and she read in a soft, low voice.

Wendy lost herself to the story, word by word. Giving in to her fatigue, she lay down upon the blanket and closed her eyes. The sun warmed her face, and she nearly fell asleep by the time Lucy reached the end of the tale.

Lucy closed the book and laid it aside, wondering at the new girl with her eyes closed, one arm bent up, her half-open hand catching the sunlight.

Lucy lay down beside her and raised a hand to shield the sun as she searched the sky for birds and clouds.

Wendy did not open her eyes, but broke the silence, saying, "Do you ever feel as though you belong in one of those tales? Instead of here, in this world, where… nothing makes as much sense as the stories do?"

Lucy had been warned never to speak of Narnia to another, unless she could be certain the other person had been there, too. She was so desperate, she couldn't have said anything other than, "I feel that way, too. I've… I've been in my own story, you see."

Wendy's eyes flew open at this and she gazed at Lucy in wonder. "Have you?" she asked, sitting up. "I have, too. Were there mermaids there?"

"Oh yes," Lucy said, excited. "And fauns and dryads…"

"Oh, but there were horrible pirates in mine!"

"We - my brothers and sister - had the most awful witch you can imagine--"

They talked well into the evening, well past the time they knew they would be in trouble for still being out.

But that didn't matter.

"Someday, I'm going back to Narnia, I'm sure of it," Lucy said, as she folded up the blanket and stuffed it back into her bag.

"I never want to go back to Neverland," Wendy said. "Sometimes… I wish… but I know I can't."

Lucy stood, her bag in her arms, eyes sad. "There's always Narnia. You never know when a door might open."

Wendy carried the book and the napkins as they strolled back into the ordered garden, toward the square buildings of the school. "I think… that would be an awfully big adventure."

= = = = =

The End


End file.
